News International chief clarifies 2003 statement that ‘we have paid the police for information in the past’ Read Rebekah Brooks’ letter to MPs in full The former Sun editor, Rebekah Brooks, told a powerful group of MPs on Monday she has no knowledge of any actual payments the paper might have made to police offers in exchange for information. In a letter to the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, Brooks, who is now chief executive of the paper’s parent company News International, said she had no “knowledge of any specific cases” in which payments to police might have been made. Brooks was responding to a request from the committee made last month to detail how many police officers received money from the Sun, which she edited from 2003 to 2009, and when the practice ceased. Brooks, who edited the Sun’s sister title the News of the World before moving to the daily in early 2003, told MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee eight years ago :”We have paid the police for information in the past.” In her letter to the home affairs select committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, Brooks said she was grateful for the opportunity to clarify the evidence she gave in March 2003. She added that she was talking in general terms about the newspaper industry and its relationship with the police, rather than the paper she edited specifically, when she appeared before the culture media and sport committee in 2003. “As can be seen from the transcript, I was responding to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information,” Brooks wrote. “My intention was simply to comment generally on the widely-held belief that payments had been made in the past to police officers. “If, in doing so, I gave the impression that I had knowledge of any specific cases, I can assure you that this was not my intention.” Vaz wrote to Brooks at the end of last month following evidence given to the home affairs select committee in March by John Yates, the acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, in which he said Scotland Yard was undertaking “research” on whether police officers had received payments from newspapers. The Labour MP for Leicester East also wrote to Yates in March on behalf of the home affairs select committee asking for more details about this research. In the same evidence session Yates reiterated his claim that the Crown Prosecution Service had initially advised the Met to adopt a narrow interpretation of the law relating to phone hacking during its initial investigation into allegations of widespread hacking at the News of the World. He said that advice “permeated the whole investigation/inquiry” and helped explain why the police had only identified a small number of victims. The committee has asked Yates to supply a copy of the legal advice the Met received from the CPS when Yates reviewed the hacking evidence last autumn. Yates said its advice changed after a case conference held in October 2010, during which the CPS made it clear that a wider definition of what constitutes a hacking offence should be adopted. MPs have asked for copies of the legal advice supplied before and after that October meeting. A spokeswoman for Vaz said he had received a reply from Yates and the committee is likely to make it public in due course. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, contradicted Yates’s claims about the CPS advice when he appeared before the home affairs committee earlier this month. Starmer maintains the Met was not advised to adopt a narrow definition of hacking at any point. •
Continue reading …Global military spending hit a new high last year, inching up 1.3% to reach a staggering $1.6 trillion, according to a Swedish think tank. The increase itself, however, is one of the lower hikes in years, a slowdown caused by the economic crisis in many Western nations. US…
Continue reading …
MSNBC’s new slogan may be “Lean Forward,” but the brazenly left-wing cable network does a lot of looking back – to the 1860s. April 12, 2011, will mark the 150 th anniversary of the bombardment of Ft. Sumter in South Carolina – the beginning of the American Civil War. As Americans observe this milestone, they’ll hear a lot of words they only vaguely remember from U.S. History class – terms like “secession,” “states rights,” “nullification,” “contraband,” or “Dred Scott.” Not MSNBC viewers. To them the language of the Civil War is remarkably familiar, since the network’s liberal hosts and guests never miss an opportunity to associate today’s conservative movement with the Confederacy, secession, slavery and racism.
Continue reading …As the wolf population in Idaho has topped 700, the governor is considering declaring a “wolf emergency,” which would allow law enforcement officials to cull wolf packs in large numbers, reports ABC News . “Until something is done about these wolves, I’m a prisoner in my own home,” said one Idaho…
Continue reading …
Not content with simply whining about one thing at a time, Ed Markey (D-Ma) works the Internet and globull warming into the same rant (via The Blaze through The Daily Bayonette through Tom Nelson) Some choice derangement from his rants about GOP legislation to stop ‘net neutrality” and stop the EPA from regulation greenhouse gases without Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Stop the ACLU Discovery Date : 10/04/2011 13:06 Number of articles : 3
Continue reading …
Demonstrators dismiss peace mediators as Gaddafi allies and renew calls for Libyan leader to step down immediately An African Union (AU) peace mission has received a frosty welcome in Benghazi, the de facto capital of the Libyan opposition, as rebel supporters insisted that Muammar Gaddafi relinquish power. More than 1,000 demonstrators waved pre-Gaddafi flags and chanted slogans against the Libyan ruler outside a hotel in the city. They said they had little faith in the visiting mediators, who they said were mostly allies of Gaddafi who preached democracy for Libya but did not practise it at home. The African negotiators, led by the South African president, Jacob Zuma, met Gaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday and afterwards said he accepted their “roadmap” for a ceasefire . However, an Algerian representative of the delegation was vague on whether the proposal included a demand for Gaddafi to give up power and would only say that the option was discussed. The delegation, minus Zuma who left on Sunday night, arrived in Benghazi where protesters and the opposition leadership demanded that Gaddafi step down immediately. “On the issue of Gaddafi and his sons, there is no negotiation,” said Ahmed al-Adbor, a member of the opposition’s transitional ruling council. “The sons and the family of Gaddafi cannot participate in the political future of Libya,” he added. The meeting came hours after Nato air strikes hit Gaddafi’s tanks, helping the rebels push back government troops who had been advancing towards Benghazi. The AU’s peace draft calls for an immediate ceasefire, co-operation in opening channels for humanitarian aid and the start of a dialogue between rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Gaddafi to pull his troops out of cities as the rebels have demanded. Zuma called on Nato to end air strikes to “give the ceasefire a chance”, but prospects for the AU plan looked bleak, given the chasm over Gaddafi’s position. “The issue of Gaddafi stepping down from any political position is a closed issue … Muammar Gaddafi does not hold a position of power,” Abdel Monem al-Lamoushi, a government spokesman, told al-Arabiya television. “No one has the right to send Muammar Gaddafi into exile out of the land of his forefathers. This man will not leave Libya.” The AU does not have a good record in brokering peace deals, having failed to end conflicts or disputes in Somalia, Madagascar and Ivory Coast. Officials from Nato, which has been bombing Libyan government forces under a UN mandate to protect civilians, said they took note of the AU proposal but said the alliance would continue operations while civilians were at risk. The AU delegation, consisting of the presidents of South Africa, Congo-Brazzaville, Mali and Mauritania, plus Uganda’s foreign minister, landed at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport after Nato gave permission for their aircraft to enter Libyan airspace. The planes were the first to land in Tripoli since the international coalition imposed a no-fly zone over the country more than two weeks ago. Gaddafi later drove among the thousands of chanting supporters who gather daily at his compound to pledge their loyalty and act as a human shield against Nato air strikes. Gaddafi’s public appearances have become less frequent as the crisis has progressed. “It does not appear that this indication of a peace deal has any substance at this point,” said one Nato official in reference to the shelling of Misrata, which has been under siege for six weeks. Al-Jazeera television quoted a rebel spokesman as saying five people had died and 20 were wounded in Misrata, the sole rebel-held city in western Libya. Rebels in Misrata told Reuters that Gaddafi’s forces had fired Russian-made Grad rockets into the city, where conditions for civilians are said to be desperate. The UN’s children’s agency said at least 20 children had been killed and many more injured in Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, over the past three weeks. Unicef said children as young as nine months were among the victims and most were under 10. It said they died of shrapnel from mortars and tanks, and bullet wounds. Unicef, which warned that tens of thousands more children were at risk because of lack of food and clean water, said last week that children in Misrata were being targeted by snipers. Libya African Union Middle East Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Jacob Zuma Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Capture by fighters loyal to Ouattara comes after more than 30 French armoured vehicles join advance on Abidjan residence Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to step down as president of Ivory Coast has plunged the country into violence, has been detained in Abidjan by opposition forces. News of his capture came after a column of more than 30 French armoured vehicles closed in on his residence in the city. A spokesman for Alassane Ouattara, who won last year’s presidential election, told the Guardian: “It’s true. Gbagbo has been taken to the Golf hotel by republican forces. Our forces went to the residence this morning and took him out.” Another Ouattara adviser, Mamado Touré, confirmed that Gbagbo was with his family at the hotel. Other news sources have reported that Gbagbo was handed over to the French by his own “presidential guard”. Although the precise details of the capture remain unclear, both the French ministry of defence and “diplomatic sources” are maintaining that it was Ouattara’s forces who captured Gbagbo. Earlier, however, France’s ambassador to Ivory Coast said Gbagbo had been detained by French special forces. Residents reported heavy fighting on Monday morning between forces loyal to Ouattara and those backing Gbagbo around Abidjan’s Cocody and Plateau districts, still controlled by Gbagbo loyalists. Hundreds of pro-Ouattara troops massed at a base camp just north of Abidjan, where a small bus arrived, filled with new Kalashnikov rifles still in their transparent blue wrappers. The French armoured vehicles, each carrying four to eight men, left their base in the south and headed towards central Abidjan early in the morning. “Armed and ready for combat,” the commanding officer ordered. The men cocked their weapons ready to fire as the vehicles rolled out of the base. “The operation is under way. I cannot give you more details. The aim is to ensure a bloodbath is averted,” said Frederick Daguillon, spokesman for the French force in Ivory Coast. France, the former colonial power in Ivory Coast which has more than 1,600 troops in the country, has taken a lead role in efforts to persuade Gbagbo to relinquish power, infuriating his supporters who accuse Paris of neo-colonialism. Gbagbo’s refusal to step down after Ouattara won November’s election, according to results certified by the UN, reignited a civil war that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and uprooted a million people. Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Kim Willsher Sam Jones guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
enlarge What modern fashion stylist George Will thinks is appropriate daywear for men and women. Hey you youngsters, get out of my Gap store! On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically — running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans. If mother is there, she, too, is draped in denim. Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche. enlarge That’s right…Levi Strauss is orchestrating the death of the American Empire. Horrors! How dare Americans look like the working class? We can’t all have Will’s upper crust, weekend-in-the-Hamptons look, but honestly, is it too much to ask that we try to class up the joint? This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don’t wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly. Edmund Burke — what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted “the decent drapery of life”; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim — said: “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” Ours would be much more so if supposed grown-ups would heed St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and St. Barack’s inaugural sermon to the Americans, by putting away childish things, starting with denim. Oh good gravy. Someone put Will out to pasture and put us out of our misery already.
Continue reading …Jon Kyl Is Sorry If He Gave Anyone The Impression That The Things He Says In Public Are Factual
April 11, 2011 No Comment
As you may recall, during today’s lengthy Pap Smear Armageddon/Government Shutdown 2011 pageant play, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) stood on the floor of the upper chamber, telling the C-Span cameras and gathered attendees that abortion was “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” That prompted many people to remark, “Uhm, actually, you have got those statistics just about as wrong as you possibly could.” But now, Kyl’s office has walked back the statement, in perhaps the most hilarious and cowardly way possible. Let’s kick this over to Alex Seitz-Wald, at ThinkProgress: This afternoon, CNN brought on Planned Parenthood’s Judy Tabar to discuss his comment. During the interview, CNN anchor Don Lemon relayed a statement from Kyl’s office walking back the comment, claiming the statement was not meant to be “factual”: LEMON: We did call his office trying to ask what he was talking about there. And I just want to give it you verbatim here. It says, ‘his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.’ Oh, ha ha, did you think that the things Kyl says aloud on television that go into the Congressional Record and that he attaches his name to are meant to be some sort of true facts or something? Well, the joke’s on you, because sometimes, Jon Kyl just likes to spit straight verbal nonsense at you to “illustrate” things that he wishes were true, but aren’t. Once upon a time, a Jon Kyl would call this little move of his “Clintonian,” so maybe we have to chalk this up to 1995 shutdown nostalgia. But noted: most of what Jon Kyl says on the Senate floor is intended to be complete horsecrap. RELATED: Kyl Walks Back Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’ [ThinkProgress] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]
Continue reading …Donald Trump Writes Blistering Letter To Gail Collins, New York Times Columnist
April 11, 2011 No Comment
Donald Trump lashed out at New York Times columnist Gail Collins in a letter to the paper published on Friday. Trump was responding to a very negative column Collins wrote last Saturday. In the column, Collins derided Trump’s presidential aspirations and mocked him as “the man who can make Bill O’Reilly look like the most sensible guy in the room.” And, of course, Collins lambasted Trump’s full-throated embrace of the “birther” movement. Moreover, she recounted a previous tangle she’d had with Trump: During one down period, I referred to him in print as a “financially embattled thousandaire” and he sent me a copy of the column with my picture circled and “The Face of a Dog!” written over it. Clearly, Trump still counts Collins among his major enemies, because he did not hold back in his letter to the editor: Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong! Trump then dug in further, repeating many of the arguments he has made recently about why President Obama may not have been born in the U.S. (all of which have been debunked, sometimes directly to Trump himself.) Collins responded in her next column, printed on Saturday. Collins did not seem too perturbed by the letter, writing that “although Trump and I have had our differences in the past, I never felt it was personal. In fact, until now, I have refrained from noting that I once got an aggrieved message from him in which he misspelled the word ‘too.’” She then rebuffed each of the claims Trump made about Obama’s birth.
Continue reading …